Allison MaslanCEO & Business Scaling Expert | WSJ Bestselling Author

Being a people pleaser was killing my business.

10 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:11

In this motivational monologue, Allison Maslan explains how people‑pleasing and fear of conflict cause entrepreneurs to shrink their vision and sacrifice authenticity. She describes codependency as taking responsibility for others' happiness, which undermines personal power. Maslan advises embracing the "elephant in the room"—addressing conflict directly—and speaking truth from a loving, empowering place. By doing so, she claims you gain respect, align with your true vision, and move into authentic leadership. She invites people‑pleasers, especially middle children, to share their experiences and follow her for further scaling and personal‑growth guidance.

Chapters

If you are shrinking your vision because you don't want to upset the apple cart, you don't want to have people be angry at you, then you're never really speaking your truth and you're never really living your vision. I got great advice some years ago was to embrace the elephant in the room and go towards the conflict. Not create the conflict, but deal with it head on and step into your power. Now, when you speak your truth, it's from a loving place, from a kind place and caring and empowering place. But when you are always worried about what others are going to think or they're going to get upset, then basically you're shrinking for them and you're trying to take the responsibility for their happiness. That's a codependency. It doesn't work. And so when you actually speak your truth, you gain more respect. Those of you that are people pleasers, middle children, in the comments, let me know if you can relate to this and what you have done to I've overcome this because my new story moving forward is it's all about speaking authentically in my true power. Let's do this. Follow me for more scaling and personal growth tips.